Defining mechanisms of neural plasticity after brainstem ischemia in rats

Neurological recovery after stroke mainly depends on the location of the lesion. A substantial portion of strokes affects the brainstem. However, patterns of neural plasticity following brainstem ischemia are almost unknown.

Here, we established a rat brainstem ischemia model that resembles key features of the human disease and investigated mechanisms of neural plasticity, including neurogenesis and axonal sprouting as well as secondary neurodegeneration.

Spontaneous functional recovery was accompanied by a distinct pattern of axonal sprouting, for example, an increased bilateral fiber outgrowth from the corticorubral tract to the respective contralesional red nucleus suggesting a compensatory role of extrapyramidal pathways after damage to pyramid tracts within the brainstem. Using different markers for DNA replication, we showed that the brainstem displays a remarkable ability to undergo specific plastic cellular changes after injury, highlighting a yet unknown pattern of neurogenesis. Neural progenitor cells proliferated within the dorsal brainstem and migrated toward the lesion, whereas neurogenesis in classic neurogenic niches, the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle and the hippocampus, remained, in contrast to what is known from hemispheric stroke, unaffected. These beneficial changes were paralleled by long-term degenerative processes, that is, corticospinal fiber loss superior to the lesion, degeneration of spinal tracts, and a decreased neuron density within the ipsilesional substantia nigra and the contralesional red nucleus that might have limited further functional recovery.

Our findings provide knowledge of elementary plastic adaptions after brainstem stroke, which is fundamental for understanding the human disease and for the development of new treatments. Ann Neurol 2018;83:1003-1015.